Dispatches from the New Massivest

Hey kids…long time no see. The days off were a nice change of pace, but it’s even better to be back. I missed ya. Lots to blog today!

So we survived the weekend snowstorm, or rather, the driving back home after the storm. Inch-thick ice and an eight-percent grade simply do not mix. But the trip was way worth it. Resort towns are weird places. I always enjoy going there, though I usually find that much of the touristy crap is, of course, just that. And we’re usually the only ones in town not there for the skiing. (I’ve skied once, liked it, and want to again, but it never seems to work out, and really, I’m not all that concerned about it. On vacation, more often than not, I’m content to just sit on my ass and relax anyway.)

The restaurant meals were pretty good, but nothing spectacular. Much better were the Cajun stuffed peppers I cooked up on Saturday night, if I do say so myself. We swam in the year-round, heated outdoor pool, what a very good feeling: warm waters in a gentle mountain snowfall. And it was our first lengthy trip with Crystal, who was a very good girl, esp. in the car on the way there and back, all cramped-up in the backseat with Jodi and Joe.

Ever since I got on this psych kick, I’ve been wanting a session…a listening session…a night with just one, maybe two people, where we flip records and drink beer and that’s it. Such a modest goal, I thought. But each time I tried to make something like that happen, it just never did, for whatever reason. This made Friday night’s after hours with Joe that much sweeter. We had fire, we had Pabst, and we had Cash, baby. We poured out a little liquor for The Man in Black and kicked over Life, a collection hand-picked by the man himself, the fourth disc in the Love God Murder series. From there it was Rejoicing in the Hands and all the inspired genius of one Devendra Banhart. And finally, there was The Kathmandu Sessions of Danny Ben-Israel, famed Israeli hippie, the last man standing. In my last post, so long ago, I promised more on Danny-Boy:

A Tel-Aviv native, he started out playing in an IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) band and achieved some minor fame in Israel. In ’68 he embarked on an eye-opening trip across Europe, from which he returned a changed man. This inspired his only officially released album, the highly controversial and subsequently banned Chantarish 3 ¼, aka Bullshit 3 ¼, sung entirely in Hebrew, which I haven’t heard yet (Take it away, Julian...).

The Kathmandu Sessions are out-there, seven wild tracks Ben-Israel laid down in English for a release in the States that never came to fruition. Let me tell ya, as a fan of the Acid Mothers Temple and the freeform freakout, rarely are such tracks as melodically and lyrically memorable as this. "The Hippies of Today are the Assholes of Tomorrow." Prescient as hell. ‘Nuff said.

Perhaps this is the hippie to cure Doug of his phobia!

Anyway, Joe also turned me on to this AMAZING Ray Charles DVD, a 1963 performance from Sao Paulo, originally shown on Brazilian TV. Two full sets with his sprawling orchestra, filmed in black and white, with Brazilian commercials intact. What an awesome performer and bandleader, at the height of his powers (and heroin addiction!) The following year, he would be arrested for possession and quit junk cold turkey, while Brazil would become a military dictatorship, soon to imprison the revolutionary likes of Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso.

Saturday night we watched Something’s Gotta Give, which is a far cry from Psych-Out, but a fun movie nonetheless. There, I said it! I did enjoy this movie, much more than I thought I would. It’s just something about Jack and Diane, I think. Or I just like the idea of Randall Patrick McMurphy getting’ it on with Annie Hall.

We also listened to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music and loads of Gillian Welch and watched Elf and the first half of The Howlin’ Wolf Story. There’s another phenomenal performer for ya, though I wish it had been pure concert footage like the Ray show instead of a documentary. Oh well. A bit of weird synchronicity though—at one point the movie referred to one Rosco Gordon, a man with whom I had been entirely unfamiliar until earlier that same day. The previous day’s mail, which I had opened only hours before, featured a package from Dualtone Records bearing Gordon’s latest, posthumous release for review in my Americana column in Skyscraper. Go Jung!

So I took Joe to Black & Read on Sunday, and while there, I ran into another friend of mine named Joe. Don’t even know his last name yet, or, more likely, I did but simply can’t remember, but I met this dude several years back through Desi and the extended PMFS crowd. Cool guy, a few years younger than me, no one I knew very well. I was sort of surprised to find him scouring over the jazz section, with a David Axelrod record under his arm. Likewise, his familiarity with Cromagnon and Black Widow quite astounded me. For some reason I just assumed he was into your typical emo and punk rock stuff—not that there’s anything wrong with that—but it sure is nice when people surprise you! So give me a call, Joe, and we’ll have ourselves a listening session!

Elsewhere…

BUSH_W32.jesusdoom Virus Wreaks Havoc: Virus crosses barrier from computers to humans! How about some ideas for Democrats? A poem to the Dems, a bit of Kerry bashing, blogs, cartoons, satire, Bushlibs, and more. If you lean to the left and want more stories like this, sign up for the democracymeansyou.com mailing list. Or, if you like your liberalism a little meatier, you should sign up with The Nation. Editor Katrina vanden Heuvel on the demonstrations in the Ukraine and yet another example of the rank hypocrisy of this administration:

A Russian friend once said to me, "You Americans are an odd people. You love our liberals, but you don't like your own liberals." He added, "You should support your local liberals too."

The blog revolution sweeps across China.

Check out Blastitude.

First there was the $28,000 Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich. And now, TopFive.com’s Top 5 Lesser-Known Food Miracles:

5> The George Michael Pulled Pork Sandwich
4> The Abe Vigoda/Erik Estrada Plate of Fish & Chips
3> The Clarence Thomas High-Protein Coca Cola
2> The Edvard Munch "I Scream" Sandwich
1> The bag of tiny colorful coated-chocolate candies with Mary Magdelene's initials inscribed on each one

**Guilty pleasure of the day: Desperate Housewives. Thank you, Tivo.

Tonight’s playlist:
Milton Nascimento / Lo Borges – Clube Da Esquina
Siloah s/t
Junior Byles – Beat Down Babylon
Django Reinhardt – s/t
Terminal Lovers – Drama Pit and Loan
Captain Beefheart – Spotlight Kid
Black Widow – Sacrifice
Spires That in the Sunset Rise – s/t
The Mandrake Memorial – s/t
Neil Diamond - Hot August Night

Thankful for the Turkey

Another Thanksgiving is almost upon us, and, despite the election results (pick yr. country: USA or the Ukraine), the never-ending pre-Armageddon in Iraq, and the ugly, polarized state of our own country, there is certainly plenty to be thankful for. Jodi’s mom and brother are braving the crowds of travelers and flying in to DIA this evening. (UPDATE: Flight cancelled, rescheduled for tomorrow.) We’ll stay in town for a few days, then head up to Keystone for some much-needed R&R. Should be a fun weekend, and a well-timed break from Thee Blog-Obsession.

Another good friend of ours happens to be rollin’ through town this evening. And although we won't be able to make it downtown to the Rock Island to check out Chicago’s own Mike Kinsella under his established nom de guerre, Owen, we shall see him soon enough. Jodi just hung with her crew in Chi-town last weekend, and there hatched plans whereby Mister Owen will be joining us at our cozy little abode in suburbia for the big turkeyfest tomorrow, and we will play the role of surrogate turkey family. Good timing, Mike!

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Psychedelia from the Middle East in full effect today, courtesy of Tel Aviv native Danny Ben-Israel’s mind-blowing disc, The Kathmandu Sessions, and a spectacular compilation of Turkish psych, ‘66-’75, Hava Narghile.

Because it is Thanksgiving, after all, we begin with Turkey.

Check out that cover, baby. Ya just can’t beat a hookah in a harem. A mighty compendium of Anatolian grooves, these twenty-two tracks, as brilliant as they are obscure, serve as a splendid introduction to an incredibly rich scene that should not be overlooked. Judging from the soothing sounds of crackle and fuzz, most of these songs were sourced directly from rare vinyl copies. Turkey, known traditionally as the gateway between East and West, again serves this purpose well, fusing its exotic, eastern-tinged, traditional folk music to the wild garage rock that was blasting out of the States (and almost every country in the world) at the time. Straight from the Bacchus Archives website:

"You'll hear sizzling raga rock guitar mingling with the exotic sounds of the saz (the national instrument of Turkey and a distant relative of the sitar) and intense duelling of electric saz and killer fuzz guitar, backed by a belly-beat provided by a darbuka. So light-up your hubble-bubble pipe (narghile) for a journey to what was once the uncrowned psych music capital of the world--take a trip to Istanbul."

And so Turkey thus became a hotbed for psychedelic raga rock in the late sixties and into the seventies. I hadn’t heard of many of these names before, but there were a few. Besides 3 Hur-El and Mogollar (with whom I was nominally familiar, thanks to the Love Peace & Poetry series), Erkin Koray makes three appearances on the disc, and is probably the most influential rock musician in Turkish history. But don’t take it from me, take it from Julian Cope:

While non-Turkish sources continually name check Koray as "the Jimi Hendrix of Turkey" to my mind’s eye and ears he’s also the Chuck Berry, the Link Wray, the John Fahey, the Jimmy Page and the T.S. McPhee of Turkey and more all combined: Not only for the early and pioneering foundations he helped lay for Turkish rock’n’roll, how he synthesised multiple music forms together into a brand new thang, or how he delivered it all with such strength and integrity that the exotic Eastern influences he would eventually weave into his rock’n’roll lived and breathed vitality and was not just added for some Hollywooden Casbah décor effect but if there was ever a musician who kicked against the pricks, did it his way -- the hard way -- and by virtue of his undying efforts lit a rock’n’roll fire in Asia Minor that sustained in the most major way possible, then it was Erkin Koray.

Damn.

I just found an awesome site. Click here if you want further info on TURKISH BEAT, PSYCH, CROSSOVER, FUSION and PROGRESSIVE MUSIC. This will take me days to go through!

I gotta run. Don’t think I’ve forgotten to wax poetic on Mr. Danny Ben-Israel, but that will have to wait for a future post.

N/P A Tribe Called Quest – Midnight Marauders

Mommy, What’s a Blog?

Last week I emailed my address book to get the word out about this site. . .this blog, if you will. And more than one of you responded with a simple query: "what’s a blog?"

blog (blôg) n.

From "Web log." Essentially a journal that is available on the web. The activity of updating a blog is "blogging" and someone who keeps a blog is a "blogger." Blogs are typically updated daily using software that allows people with little or no technical background to update and maintain the blog.

Pretty simple, really. But don’t feel dumb if you hadn’t heard the term, you’re definitely not the only one. Welcome...to the Revolution.

So, can something this simple really be that revolutionary? To this I say that the revolutionary is rarely so complex on its face.

I have had several such conversations with Tom and others in recent days. I’m fascinated by the journalistic possibilities of weblogs, of the opportunities they might potentially open up over time, the humanity that can pour from a post, their part in fulfilling the true potential of the Internets (sic).

Sometime, I would encourage you to check out some other folks’ blogs at random. It’s really fun, and pretty interesting to get inside someone else’s head. Sometimes it’s flat-out disturbing. On the blogger toolbar at the top of the page, click "NEXT BLOG" to be taken to a random blogspot. Or click here. Or better yet, start your own blog!

Because somewhere out there, somebody cares, and you may not even know it.

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In other news:

*First there was Hatebeak, the death metal band fronted by a parrot. Now we have Caninus, purveyors of pitbull grindcore, fronted by, you guessed it, two pit bulls. Check out these lyrics:

"Are we owned by you, or are YOU owned by us? Let's see, you pick up our shit, take us for walks, buy us food, feed us everyday, drive us around, wash us, take us on trips...looks like YOU are OUR SLAVES. Sleep tight tonight, maybe I'll wake you up if I smell smoke. maybe I won't. Remember WE own YOU!"

Such craziness. I ordered their new 7", Now The Animals Have a Voice, from Aquarius. As many of you know, I am both pit bull lover and death metal fan. Our beautiful Crystal is a pit bred from the highly esteemed line of the Notorious Juan Gotti, but she couldn't give a damn about Emperor.

*The Virgin Mary grilled cheese sandwich was snatched up at the bargain-basement price of $28,000.

*Those damn Swift Boat vets are at it again! ; )

* Guilty pleasure of the day: Def Leppard's Hysteria. Never has corporate rock been overproduced so perfectly.

N/P Field Mice – For Keeps

Trippin' with Jack (...and Tom and Doug and...)

Yesterday afternoon, while the majority of my town’s citizenry were watching the Broncos blow out the Saints, and others were, perhaps, downloading the jaw-dropping clip of Friday night’s Pacers/Pistons B-brawl game, I was the potato on the couch, nuzzled firmly in the throes of San Francisco as hippie mecca, taking in the fun and, surprisingly, not-so-bad 1968 flick Psych-Out. This is one of the best of the hippie B-movies, starring none other than Jack Nicholson, Bruce Dern, and Dean Stockwell, and produced by the ageless Dick Clark. (Speaking of the latter, he recently won a lawsuit against Swedish rockers The Soundtrack of Our Lives because he holds a patent to the phrase "the soundtrack of your life". What a joke. Like Ebbott and Co. were really impacting ol’ Dick’s income.)

While the script isn’t exactly Scorcese material, it is a cut above the average storyline for such flicks. In a nutshell, a deaf runaway girl shows up on the Haight/Ashbury scene at its peak, looking for her older brother, a.k.a. The Seeker (Dern), who has sent her a cryptic postcard bearing the subtle message, "God is alive and well in a sugar cube." Nicholson and Stockwell are musicians in a failed garage band (Jack’s mimed guitar "playing" is hilariously unconvincing, and one of the highlights of the movie!) who team up with the girl to seek The Seeker.

As a time capsule of a bygone era, the movie succeeds brilliantly, with the good, the bad, and the ugly of the late sixties hippie world represented in accurate proportions. (As this is ’68, much more of the bad and the ugly is beginning to come to light. More than once, a character asks rhetorically, "What about peace and love, man?", even as the pre-Altamount violence swirls around him.) The cinematography is colorful and vibrant as expected, with the director framing some truly freaky shots, including what are some of the best hallucination sequences of the time. The scariest: guy freaks on acid in hardware store and wields a power saw, determined to cut off his own hand! Beautiful stuff! Another reason to watch: the soundtrack, of course, which features the Strawberry Alarm Clock & the Seeds, who play at a deliciously weird hippie funeral. Inexplicably, TV Guide refers to the "acid rock" on the film’s soundtrack as being "the single biggest detriment to the film." A wha?? I would strongly disagree, as would most psych fans. Still, though Psych-Out is the better movie, an even better soundtrack was set to 1967’s similarly themed Riot on Sunset Strip, featuring more "live" (lip-synched) performances from the Standells and the Chocolate Watchband. I caught this one on Starz a few months back.

Great quotes from Psych-Out:

Undercover narc in the diner: "I’ll be glad when the costume party is over, when these freaks grow up and start to make a living like everyone else."

Hippie Girl: "There’s something crawling on your sleeve. I think it’s a louse."
Hippie Boy: "Yeah, that’s Manny."

Dean Stockwell: "All the games have to go, man, cuz it’s all one big plastic hassle."
Jack Nicholson: "So live in a jelly jar."
Dean: "You see this beam of light? That’s all there is. The rest is in your head."

Ah, the timeless, scatterbrained wisdom of the Buddha!

This movie, along with another early Nicholson venture, The Trip, were recently issued together on a single DVD, but apparently, both movies have been highly edited from the originals. I’m not certain which version I saw.

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Other items of note:

• Tom, a.k.a. Nick Drake, begins to “get” Smile. Next up: a revisitation of Pet Sounds. If you don’t “get it”, let me know and I’ll “send it” to you. : )
  
  
• Doug saw the Arcade Fire last night, and boy, am I even more excited for 12/3!!!
  
  
• Saturday’s get-together was a definite success. Food, beer, friends, dogs, and sweet, sweet psychedelic music. A little taste of Comus was had by all. Thanks ya’ll, for coming.
  
  
• A big what-up to my two new friends, Danny and Jon. Both of these fellas hail from Queens but were out in the Rockies this weekend visiting my former long-time roommate, Mr. Bryan Egle. These three cats met on the Appalachian Trail last year, and I think the world will end up a better place for it. So keep in touch, my brothas, and turn me on to more of those funky links!
  
  
• A smattering of new discs this weekend: Picked up Vision Creation Newsun by the Boredoms at Black & Read. This band has changed greatly, and for the better, since the unstructured noise freak-outs of their early nineties days. Another Television Personalities CD (Closer to God) arrived in the mail—-thank you, ebay. Also, I received my latest Forced Exposure order, featuring, among other items, Hava Narghile (a killer compilation of obscure Turkish psych bands, circa 1966 to 1975) and the recent reissue of the 1979 Symptome – Dei album from French act Flamen Dialis (excellent stuff, like, say Eno’s Another Green World soundscapes with its pop elements jettisoned for a more obscure French prog-experimentalism.)
  
  
• The anniversary of JFK’s assassination is today, with an odd remembrance from a Scottish video game company.
  
  
• This just in: Jet crashes before picking up elder Bush.

N/P: Television Personalities - Closer to God

Cliff Notes from Saturday's Times

The Times is really on the ball today.

• It is becoming clear that perhaps Bush’s exit strategy from Iraq is WAR WITH IRAN?? Yet: Doubts Persist on Iran Nuclear Arms Goals? Did ol’ Colin stiff us one last time on his way out the door? What in sam hell is going on here? This is truly frightening. On the one hand, it makes a certain amount of perverse sense, but on the other, why exchange one disaster we already know for one we don’t that likely will make us think in retrospect, that Baghdad really WAS a cakewalk? I, for one, will not be sending flowers to Dick Cheney.
  
  
• Errol Morris has a philosophical take on the nature of the medium of photography and its role in both Abu Ghraib and the new scandal out of Fallujah, turning to both Shakespeare and Vietnam to make sense of what’s happening now. An excellent read.
  
  Meanwhile, Israel may have its own mini Abu Ghraib a brewin'.
  
  
• And the war begins! House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a must-pass spending bill. You gotta hand it to 'em, they don’t rest for a minute. I won’t get all into this right now. This is a sensitive topic on which reasonable people disagree. But the zeal of the anti-abortion crowd portends a rather stormy four more years.
  
  
• Kristof offers a few great ideas to fix our election system. Just because there’s a chance better than half that the 2004 election was, in fact, legitimate and unstolen does not mean that the system ain’t broke. He also highlights the disturbingly high percentage of Congressmen who run unopposed in their districts. And the good doctor’s prescription? Nonpartisan experts to redraw gerrymandered Congressional maps, the abolition of the Electoral College (amen, there are a great many reasons to do this), and the funding of campaigns through blind trusts, so pols won’t know to whom they’re beholden. All extremely logical, common sense solutions which don’t have a chance in hell of passing in today’s Congress.
  
  
• House ethics committee has ruled that a Democratic lawmaker exaggerated in the accusations he brought in June against majority leader Tom DeLay. Ah yes, the Michael Moore syndrome. Though 99% of Fahrenheit 9/11 was accurate, it was not unimpeachable, and Republicans naturally seized on that other 1% and successfully discredited the film in the eyes of many. These kinds of things are inexcusable: they hurt the cause and they’re unnecessary. Why exaggerate with Delay when the guy is one scandal away from finally paying for his transgressions?
  
  
• Rod Paige, the education secretary ... told Bush he would prefer to leave by the end of the first presidential term in January to pursue a long-planned 'personal project,' which an aide later identified as a remodeling of his house."
  
  - The Associated Press, Nov. 15.

From Dead Meadow to Mr. Peanut Grows a Chin

I’m draggin’ a little today, but not as much as I could be. I’m simply not used to being out ‘til almost 3 AM on a work night anymore. There are many reasons, many of them good, why I don’t go to shows to the extent that I did back in my heyday. You are probably familiar with most of them. But I’ve made a conscious decision to shift the pendulum back a bit and put more effort into makin’ the scene.

To that end I wandered down to the Larimer Lounge last night to mingle with friends over PBR drafts and take in a show by Matador recording artists Dead Meadow. A good percentage of the non-touring friends-of-PMFS crew was out in force, and good times were had by all. (Btw...Ken, where the hell did you go? Don’t think I won’t be gettin’ my Bucky book back, bro!)

Reviews of the Meadow were decidedly mixed, with undying love, mild disappointment, and bittersweet ambivalence professed in approximately equal portions. I felt a little of each myself. I was right up front for the first half of their set before retiring to the back of the club midway through. Live, the DC band was better than solid, at times they were mesmerizing, yet I feel I did not receive the spectacular ass-kicking that I was expecting. I can’t put my finger on exactly what intangible I felt was missing, but more than once the thought crossed my head that I might rather be home enjoying the simple pleasures of my vinyl lair, ears swallowed by headphones, tokin’ on Dead Meadow’s psilocybic Philly Blunt of a third record, Shivering King and Others. I reviewed it for Skyscraper last year:

The fittingly christened DC power trio Dead Meadow really comes into their own on its third studio album, the gloriously epic gatefold double-LP Shivering King and Others. Though weaned on the Dischord-style hardcore that has dominated the DC underground for going on two decades, the Meadow foregoes Fugazi-bred punk flavors for a massive, fuzzy, psychedelic colossus of a sound deeply influenced by the hulking mastodons of late-‘60s psych and ‘70s hard rock. Sabbath. Cream. Hendrix. Zeppelin. Floyd. Deep Purple. Vanilla Fudge. Blue Cheer. The musical ancestry of Dead Meadow is a totem pole of monolithic icons stacked atop a surplus of other like-minded but lesser known bands of the same era, yet this band is no throwback to a bygone age of bloat; neither can their sound be summed up so succinctly. Just as endemic is the drone & blues &Velvets recipe of Spacemen 3, permeating Shivering King like an osmotic specter. Modern-day stoner disciples of Hawkwind make red-eyed cameos in a thick miasma of ubiquitous smoke. Perhaps their closest of contemporaries is Philly’s Bardo Pond, who, ironically, left the Matador just as Dead Meadow was checking in. More than any lame comparisons to other bands, though, this record is an unspeakably brilliant painting in an otherworldly gallery of its own means and ends. No museum piece, it hangs prominently in your mind’s eye, a sprawling canvas of hypnotic grooves and hallucinogenic flashbacks, a phantasmagoric collage of Tolkienesque fairy tales and cryptic lullabies. To describe the swirling contents herein is to hesitate and be reminded once again of the oft-quoted suggestion that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture." ‘Tis better to close your eyes and turn off your mind: this king’s trance-like shivers live far beyond the measly decoration of words; in the celestial orbit of its soaring, effects-laden guitar riffage, in the titanic sludge of its lumbering low end, in the beautifully unintelligible murmurs and paranoid whispers which comprise the bulk of this album’s vocal forays. Moogs and sitars dissolve murkily into a maelstrom of vintage distortion and reverberating volume, each song flowing effortlessly into the next with a cohesion that invokes Sleep’s landmark Jerusalem album, which was, in fact, one veeerrryyy long song. After the skull-crushing opener "I Love You Too", "Bubbling Flower" breaks down into the expansive territory of "Everything’s Going On", then leads into the hard-driving "The Whirlings", eventually winding into the eerie acoustic requiem "Heaven", the album’s haunting pinnacle. Through it all, Dead Meadow relentlessly slices through the arena rock pretensions of their forebears and brings the DIY punk ethic full-circle to confront its original enemy head-on.

It’s interesting how some bands live and die by The Live Experience, their entire recorded discographies shriveling against the spells cast by the sizzle of an amplifier, while others toss off masterpieces of studio wizardry with seemingly little effort, yet never can quite reproduce that magic effectively onstage. Dead Meadow isn’t quite so easy to pigeonhole. I definitely enjoyed the songs from Shivering King the most. I wasn’t nearly as into the other stuff, but I'm not sure if that’s because the songs are weaker or just less familiar. Are their first two records still out of print for a reason?

In the end, I think what sabotaged my enjoyment of the show ever so slightly, was simply the great expectations unleashed by such a record so nearly perfect as Shivering King and Others.

Of the two opening bands, one was rather impressive, the other, less so. I really don’t have anything to say about the Clean Prophets, but Denver’s own Nightingale rocked my world, perhaps more so than the stylistically similar Meadow. Knowing nothing about them, expecting nothing from them, I thoroughly enjoyed every second of their fuzzed-out, trance-inducing riffage. Is this the flip side of the expectation coin? Heavily indebted to Spacemen 3 and distinguished by their brilliant seventies fashion sense and thin mustaches, I’ll definitely be checking these cats out again. Their first EP drops in early 2005.

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Looking forward to the Arcade Fire at the Larimer on December 3rd. Do rush out and pick up their fabulous debut, Funeral, out now on the venerable Merge Records, so you'll know all the songs before the show. Check out noiseboy’s review here.

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You have got to see this ebay auction:

Virgin Mary In Grilled Cheese
NOT A HOAX ! LOOK & SEE !

Seriously. It’s up to $7,600, with less than three days remaining!

It's a freaking grilled sandwich! Roll item description, please, spelling errors and all:

You are viewing an extroidinary out of this world item!! I made this sandwich 10 years ago, when I took a bite out of it, I saw a face looking up at me, It was Virgin Mary starring back at me, I was in total shock, I would like to point out there is no mold or disingration, The item has not been preserved or anything, It has been keep in a plastic case, not a special one that seals out air or potiental mold or bacteria, it is like a miracle, It has just preserved itself which in itself I consider a miracle, people ask me if I have had blessings since she has been in my home, I do feel I have, I have won $70,000 (total) on different occasions at the casino near by my house, I can show the recipts to the high bidder if they are interested, I would like all people to know that I do believe that this is the Virgin Mary Mother Of God, That is my solem belief, but you are free to believe that she is whomever you like, I am not scamming anyone, I would like all potinetal bidders to know that this has gained alot of attention from media personell around the country, On Tuesday November 16, 2004 the Miami Herald will feature a story in thier paper on this phenomon, Also Today which is November 15, 2004 The story of The Virgin Mary In The Grilled Cheese will be aired on Channel 4 News here in South Florida, The story has been told nationwide on radio stations ect. I also would like all onlookers to understand why I am choosing to keep the high bidders ID private, I listed this once before and had all kinds of emails some were nice and funny comments but many were cruel intended, and vindictive, I ignored them but, I do not wish to subject potiental buyers to this form of invasion, The last time this was listed there were over 80,000 viewers, Like I said I recieved alot of emails that were down right cruel intended, I do not care I will not read them anyhow, but you should not waste your time being vindictive, I am asking that only serious questions about the item be emailed to me, not jokes or ridiclous comments, If you have a genuine question please do feel free to email, I am not scamming anyone I am selling this item proivided that there is a serious bid with a payment, SERIOUS BIDDERS ONLY! DO NOT BID IF YOU INTEND TO RETRACT THE BID OR FOOL AROUND, THERE IS NO RESERVE ON THIS AUCTION!! I AM STARTING IT OUT AT THE BOTTOM LINE PRICE THAT I INTEND TO SELL THIS ITEM FOR!!

The holy sandwich was first brought to my attention by the good folks at Miles of Music. They continue:

While the item itself brought minutes of pleasure, the voluminous listings related to it are what really got us going. There was the group of listings that jumped on the entrepreneurial train by offering t-shirts, bumper stickers, key chains, etc all emblazoned with the image. Then there is the other group of joke postings that swear, SWEAR they aren't hoaxing! Your Jester was literally wiping tears from his eyes, the laughs were so big. Coincidentally, Robinson announced today that he found a packing peanut on the floor in the warehouse that looks just like Jay Leno!

Ha! Mr. Peanut grows a chin! Ya gotta love capitalism.

Alright, naptime! Whew! Longest post yet!

N/P 3 Mile Pilot – Another Desert Another Sea (underappreciated classic!)

At Least They're Having Fun in Little Rock

Great news out of Iran today. A real shocker, this one.

More happy news. It looks like mad cow may be back. Sounds like the perfect moment for the reconvened GOP-led Congress to repeal scheduled food labeling laws. Check out Eric Schlosser’s terrifying article in last month’s issue of Vanity Fair to find out why this is a bad idea.

I’m all for a pro-business environment, but hoss, don’t you think this deregulation bit’s done got outta hand? Will it end only with the rollback of every last vestige of the New Deal? That, of course, is the real reason that Bush continues to allow the deficit to explode. When it finally dawns on the American people what this radicalized GOP is really up to, the shit is gonna hit the fan.

That is why I wait. For the inevitable pendulum shift. For someday, it will not be such a grand ol' party.

The gross, purposeful negligence of our government w/r/t the safety of our food is surely one of the most disturbing of the balls dropped by our sworn protectors—though it has a helluvalot of competition. Just from today’s news:

• Senate approves legislation to increase debt ceiling by $800 billion (!!), House to follow.
• House GOP changes rules to shield Tom DeLay if he is indicted.
• Arlen Specter gets bitchslapped (again).
• Now for my personal favorite. Who would have thought this even possible? Secrecy grows in Bush administration?

So when do we start having fun again? Or does that only come after Ronald Reagan's name is slapped onto absolutely everything that can possibly be named?

This may be a start. Spend some time here and soak up the empathy.

Bill, oh Bill, wherefore are thou?

Ah yes, that’s happening today also. At least they’re having fun in Little Rock.

N/P The Life & Times of Laddio Bolocko, disc 1

Googling Bloggery / The Propriety of Money Handling

Thank you, Google! I am now officially the sole result for a search on the word "skullbloggery". And no, I did not mean to search for skullbuggery.

Man, this blogging business is crazy. I’ve had the Novellas up for not even a week yet, and Google’s already got me all indexed. Pick any random, somewhat unique phrase from a previous post, tap it into ye olde search engine, and voila!

For example, thanks to my twin affinities for the new Robyn Hitchcock album and an old Rick Springfield one, coupled with a poor excuse for wit, I am also the sole result for a search on such phrases as:

• "earlier this year the consummate English kook flew his arse,"
• "a belated apology for talking shit", and
• "IP packets containing the payload data".

Likewise, the Googlebot phenomenon explains how thenoiseboy’s review of Dungen, to which I refer one post below, found its way into an email update sent out by Scandinavian music gurus It’s a Trap less than a week after its posting, much to the surprise of thenoiseboy. Ah...those heady days of September ’04. We were so naïve.

But it’s November now, the election’s over, and the bloggers won! (Hey, we must enjoy our silver linings.) Chris Matthews and the pundits are all abuzz over blogs. The point is that these days it’s possible for anybody with an Internet connection to be Sy Hersh or Lester Bangs, and, though it may be a lot to sift through, that’s a damn good thing. Inevitably, the more information that’s out there, the better off we all are.

Blogging is merely a part of a larger movement, only now taking form, that of 21st century populism and electronic man-on-the-street democratization. The pendulum is shifting: someday Wal-Marts will go out of business while the mom-and-pops thrive. We are already seeing a version of this scenario with the relative strength of independent record labels holding up amidst the slow, painful, public collapse of the majors. Media consolidation is neither static nor infinite. Clear Channel will not always be Clear Channel.

---

Lastly, someone has some 'splainin’ to do, and it’s the $15 million question. Now I don’t want to jump to conclusions without hearing JFK’s side, but WTF??!! He promised he would give us his all, but for my money, I say that means having a bank account not significantly higher than zero on The Morning After. It's hard to read this as anything but an insult to all those who gave in $10, $20, and $30 increments, including yours truly, those of us who cared SO MUCH and wanted to contribute somehow, in our own small ways, to the Crawford, Texas relocation project. I didn't walk neighborhoods and stand on the corner of 58th & Kipling holding up Kerry/Edwards signs for your future political career.

John, let me tell ya what I told a bearded, battered Al Gore. I do still love ya, but if you think you’re gonna run again next time 'round, forget about it now and hang on to your dignity. I’m not big on do-overs, and to a party sorely in need of a fresh approach, you offer only a disappointing rerun.

And really, does anyone ever want to see those nasty freakin' Swift Boat Veterans again??

I hate to be so harsh on the guy--there really are quite a few things to like about John Forbes Kerry. Quite a few. And I think he would have made a very good president. And, let me stress, I don't have all, or even many, of the facts yet. But right now I gotta call it like I see it.

A’ight, I gots to get out of this chair and shake these CPT-ravaged hands like there’s no tomorrow! Speaking of tomorrow, Dead Meadow show--can’t wait!

N/P Amon Duul II – Yeti, record one, side two.

The Bird and the Dungen Appreciation Society

But first: check it! Jack White and Brendan Benson are doing a Lennon/McCartney thing.

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Yeah? Screw you too buddy. Bite it.

The History of the Middle Finger

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If:

a.) you’re a vinyl collector, and

b.) you have twenty-three bucks lying around gathering dust, and

c.) you don’t have a philosophical problem with spending that amount of scratch on a single spinning disc, and

d.) you’re intrigued by music sung in the Swedish tongue...

...well then you could do much worse than hightailin’ it over to Forced Exposure RIGHT NOW* and snagging one of their last remaining copies of Dungen’s sophomore LP, 2002's Stadsvandringar, aka Dungen II. It’s just as mind-blowing, perhaps more so, as/than 2004's Ta Det Lugnt, the latest, and most deservedly hyped long-player out of the Dungen camp, and it comes housed in beautiful gatefold with pictures of the gorgeous young twentysomething Gustav Ejstes. Limited to 500 copies; absolutely guaranteed to draw huge sums of money on ebay in the not-too-distant-future.

I couldn't put it any better than my friend thenoiseboy did in his spot-on write-up of Ta Det Lugnt, which equally applies to II:

"This is the closest we’re likely to come in modern times to re-envisioning the radical sense of freedom the rock and roll community experienced as the ‘60s bled into the ‘70s and one drug gave way to another. That a 20-something kid from Sweden has tapped into this kind of emotion and captured it in a recording that sounds of that time is...frighteningly genius."

Check out Dungen’s web site here, sound files here, and don’t forget to skim the guestbook for fawning accolades from all over the world, if you don’t want to take my word for it. If you max to the bottom of the page and scroll up, you will notice that nearly every post to the guestbook is in Swedish until late September/early October 2004. This would be just after the infamous Pitchfork review came out that unleashed this enormous tidal wave of Dungen appreciation stateside.

Holy crap, Ta Det is out on vinyl now too!!! Gotta run!

*Also available on compact disc at greatly reduced rates, for those so inclined.

N/P The Gris Gris – s/t

Robyn Hitchcock - Spooked

• This is a shoe-in for my Top Ten of ‘Ought Four...and whaddya know, December is just around the corner. Ah yes, 'tis the season for music geeks the world over to begin considering their annual Best-Ofs—more on that later, most certainly.
  

  <<<Visit Robyn's Museum>>>

• I’m no Hitchcock connoisseur. At least not yet. I own and enjoy three Soft Boys albums, yet prior to my purchase of Spooked, I had none of his solo stuff. I hadn’t even heard it. But I jumped on this baby when I heard that earlier this year the consummate English kook flew his arse to the Capital of Country Music for a few sessions with Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, and that this was the result.
  
  
  
• First things first. Gillian and David are geniuses: flat-out, hands down, without question. I challenge anyone to uncover even a single flaw in their masterpiece, 2001's Time (The Revelator). Welch's other three records are outstanding as well. Her musical partnership with Mr. Rawlings has been one of the best things to happen to traditional folk music in decades. And with Mr. Hitchcock, they make for one of the more satisfying collaborations in recent memory, for sure.
  
  
• It is difficult for me to imagine a more gorgeous collection of songs in the Hitchcock catalogue. And not merely for its sparse acoustic backdrop, so brilliantly painted by Dave & Gil & Rob, though the positive impact of a change of environments on Hitchcock himself most likely cannot be overstated.
  
  
• Is Spooked Hitchcock’s Nebraska? Well, not exactly. The landscape is far less desolate, and mostly free of working class Woody Guthrie-isms. But songwriting like this puts you on the A-list in my book. And that, for me, likely means some digging into said catalogue. Anyone know which are the good Egyptians records?
  
  
• Poignant melodies. Deft picking. Breathtaking harmonies. A fabulous Dylan cover. And available vinyl (thanks, Yep Roc). Bing-a-bong-a-bing-bong-bing-bong.

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Coming soon: shilling for the likes of Brazilian iconoclast Tom Ze and defunct Australian band Dumb and the Ugly. So brush up on your Portuguese, mate!

New Destinations

Did you know that the patent on silly putty expired not too long ago? Neither did I, until Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools hipped me to that crucial fact. Kelly is one cool dude, and his web site is jam-packed with all kinds of random info, both useful and -less. So what are you waiting for? C'mon kids, we're going to Putty World!

When you're done there, you should hit up the world-wide abode of my main man from the psychology department of Ritsumeikan University, in Kyoto, Japan, Akiyoshi Kitaoka. This cat has a thing for illusions.

N/P: Bloodrock 2

Top 5 Signs Gas Is Too Damn Expensive

• 5) You've been suspended from your carpool until you lose 15 pounds.
  
  
• 4) To save money, you run 80 percent gas, 20 percent that new Britney Spears perfume.
  
  
• 3) Snoop Dogg's new ride is a blinged-out hybrid he calls his "Priusizzle."
  
  
• 2) Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Geo Metro edges Jeff Gordon's Mini Cooper in the Daytona 500 yards.
  
  and Topfive.com's #1 Sign Gas Is Too Damn Expensive...
  
  
• 1) Top rated show: "Pimp My Bike."
  

N/P: The Left Banke - There's Gonna Be A Storm

Porter Goss & Dr. Dre

Supposedly the environment at the CIA has gotten so bad, the agency has been chosen to host next year’s Vibe awards.

From the outside, Mr. Jones, it’s difficult to tell just what exactly is happening here. Is the new director offending longtime spooks because he is making the tough choices necessary to shake up a terribly ineffective, risk-averse culture? Or is he, not so long ago a GOP Congressman, out to purge the agency of independent dissent (Read: Democrats)? Either way, heads are rollin’.

One does not require an overactive imagination to see the significant problems which can arise by appointing partisan figures to such positions. A similar situation exists with respect to election officials, who are also elected partisans. Conflicts of interest and opportunities for corruption are rife, even if said officials are honest, decent people, as most certainly are. But such positions, and the systems they support, are far too consequential to take anybody's word for it. The importance of holding transparent, undisputed elections, free of taint, is too great. Not to mention the relative importance of gathering intelligence for our national security.

Who watches the Watchmen? We are, after all, supposed to be showing these folks how it's done.

N/P Dark Tranquillity – The Gallery

How Thick This Thread By Which We Hang?

"Finally, let us hope Bush doesn’t reward the inexcusably gross incompetence of Condeleeza Rice with the ship of State."

--anti-rove, some ten hours ago

The ink on my last posting had barely dried...er--the IP packets containing the payload data of my last posting had barely initiated electronic transmission--when it was announced that the good Doctor Condeleeza Rice will take over for Powell. Hell, it’s not like Bush hasn’t let me down before. Cough, cough. And I suppose it could be worse. It could ALWAYS be worse, yet that is little comfort.

Rice is a terrible and predictable choice. It shows once again that wrongheaded advice and a disturbing predilection to see the world the way one wants to see it and not the way it truly is, wrapped in undying loyalty to W, will be rewarded in this second term. Who's your daddy, Condi? As national security adviser, she would time and again find herself outmatched, outmuscled, and outmaneuvered by cannier and more powerful figures within the administration, and there’s no reason to suspect that this charade will not continue just because they’ll now call her Madam Secretary.

Haven’t we seen this movie before? There once was a doctor who became the national security adviser, and then secretary of state; oh yeah, that was Kissinger. Funny thing about ol’ Henry. All those bad things (read: war crimes) his critics charged him with back in the seventies...well, they're true. And they’re heinous. The man can barely leave the country for fear of foreign extradition. Check out "Kissinger Declassified" in the December edition of Vanity Fair, in which Christopher Hitchens proves he’s still good for something:

"As Chile and Argentina finally seek justice for those who were tortured, raped, and "disappeared" under the right-wing dictatorships of the 70s, the declassification process in Washington is revealing the horrifying complicity of then U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger."

This man was Bush’s first choice for 9/11 Commissioner—good one, W! I'm STILL rolling on the floor over that one!

Fact. There are horrible, despicable things about our government that we just don’t want to believe. And with barely a wink the Right takes advantage of this unassailable reality, framing the debate as We the Patriotic vs. the Blame America Firsters. Sometimes it’s enough to make you want to bury your head in the sand. But that’s their territory. We just need to reframe the debate.

Oh, and don’t get me started about the other explosive (literally) article in the latest Vanity Fair, the one about the return of Gulf War syndrome. In Bosnia and Kosovo it was called Balkans syndrome. Did you know that most of our armor-piercing shells and cannon rounds are made of depleted uranium? Do you suppose that might have anything to do with it? Shockingly, the Pentagon "resists" that explanation, sounding very much like a circa-1960s incarnation of RJ Reynolds. Oh the destructive callousness one must wield just to save one's ass (or a few bucks)! These poor soldiers deserve more. Those fortunate ones who make it back home safely should not then have to suffer and die down the road for a problem we refuse to even acknowledge now.

More lighthearted fare soon. :)

N/P Jackie O Motherfucker - Change

Canadians, Springfieldians, Sambucans

Lots of fun today, shirking the responsibilities of our respective jobs, splashing the blogosphere with the Rorschach ink blots of rhetoric!

• For all you folks still disheartened over the events of 11/2, the good people of Canada may be able to help.
  
  
• My close friend Tommy Ventura has a blog, of which I was unaware until this morning. Ride the ghost buffalo with TV!
  
  
• I believe I owe Rick Springfield, '80s music icon and General Hospital star, a belated apology for talking shit all these years: you rock, Rick!
  
  
• Finally, let us hope Bush doesn’t reward the inexcusably gross incompetence of Condeleeza Rice with the ship of State.

Last night Jodi and I took a cue from the playbook of a distant relative, the great Frank Lloyd Wright, who once remarked, "Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity." Yes, Denver’s own Sambuca Jazz Café is the perfect little spot for candlelight romance and birthday celebrations. And while I’m no Jason Sheehan, (the Westword's hip food critic whose every column delights me, and whose narcissism accounts for at least a quarter of the local weekly’s letters of complaint to the editor), I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the food is out of this world (mmmmm, duck confit pastries...). Though it’s not a cheap place, if you join their Sambuca Secrets club, your birthday entrée is free. And they hooked a brotha up last night. The atmosphere really makes this place, though--the mood, the lighting, the am-bi-ance--and while the jazz is not exactly cutting-edge, it’s not Kenny G either. And let's face it, do you really want Albert Ayler skronking away onstage while you try to remember which is your salad fork?

N/P: The Ecstasy of Saint Theresa - Thirteen Years in Noises

Bye Bye Colin....gulp.

Ever since Colin Powell discarded his better instincts and trashed his good name with a disgraceful presentation steeped in mistruths at the United Nations back in ’03, I have been a fierce critic of the Bush Administration’s token moderate. Even so, it was somewhat comforting to know that the old general was sticking it out to battle the batshit neocon contingent that got us into this Mess O’ Potamia (as recently as yesterday’s post, I was crying out for Colin’s firm hand to help jumpstart the Mideast peace process. Again.) Colin’s out. Sigh. Now we hold our collective breath and pray.

A Birthday Wish

So anys-way, it’s my birthday, boyee. Which means that I have officially overcome the J/27 curse. And I got everything I asked for, like delicious blueberry pancakes and a portable record player, and some other things I didn’t ask for.



R.I.P. O.D.B., Dirt McGirt, Big Baby Jesus. You were truly an American original.

Speaking of icons recently struck down, what I really want for my birthday is for our newly elected president to take Friedman’s advice for once and use this opportunity to get down to the business of peace. Or is negotiation and compromise too much of a Bill Clinton thing? Sharon may actually be on his way to Shanghai with his Dick Nixon mask on—and somebody better be there (Colin...Colin...anyone?) to keep all hell from breaking loose.

N/P: Kill Creek – Proving Winter Cruel,
Incredible String Band – s/t

Quote of the Day

You'd think the one good thing about merging church and state would be that politics would be suffused with glistening Christian sentiments like "love thy neighbor," "turn the other cheek," "good will toward men," "blessed be the peacemakers" and "judge not lest you be judged."

Yet somehow I'm not getting a peace, charity, tolerance and forgiveness vibe from the conservatives and evangelicals who claim to have put their prodigal son back in office.

I'm getting more the feel of a vengeful mob - revved up by rectitude - running around with torches and hatchets after heathens and pagans and infidels.

--Maureen Dowd, 11/14/04, Slapping the Other Cheek, courtesy of that pagan bastion of liberalism and decadence, the New York Times.

Thank you Mo. Would that it were not so.

4 For 4 at Black and Read

Last night after work I ducked into what is rapidly becoming my favorite record store in the area for what is rapidly becoming a weekly look-see. Sometimes I’m just absolutely amazed at the gems I’ve discovered here…(like Psychedelic Underground--the first Amon Duul record, or Gary Wilson’s super-rare and equally weird 1977 private press You Think You Really Know Me, both had, I believe, for a mere five bones a piece). And last night was no exception.

I took a chance on four records and damned if every last one of them isn’t one of the greatest things I’ve heard in this life.


First up: Earmark’s typically beautiful 180 gram virgin vinyl reissue of the 1971 record Mice and Rats in the Loft by Jan Dukes de Grey. This had been on my list to check out for awhile now, but I wasn’t sure just what to expect. Current 93’s David Tibet penned the liner notes…a truly good sign, as the man has generally irreproachable taste in the more obscure lines of 1970s freeform acid folk (See: Finn, Simon. Pass the Distance). This record is unbelievably great and hardly comparable to anything….but it seems to capture the same wild pagan spirit that colored Comus’ mighty First Utterance. So fucking ahead of its time. Tibet calls it "beautifully poisonous" and notes that he has been unable to trace the whereabouts of the members of this European trio, making them all the more mysterious.


The cover of Sandy Bull’s Fantasias for Guitar and Banjo portends a fairly straight-laced listening experience, like, say, an early ‘60s Doc Watson effort or something. It’s not. Like the more heralded (and rightfully so) John Fahey, Bull elegantly weaves influences from Arabic and Indian music into the tapestry of American roots music. "Blend" takes up the entire first side of this record: it is mesmerizing. It’s pretty unbelievable to me that Bull has not gotten his due, for bands like Six Organs of Admittance would not exist without this record. Check out this piece, an article on Bull originally from 1970.



Lastly, two lost masterpieces which cover the dark side of late sixties’ psychedelia. Both Mad River and CA Quintet seem to have dropped more than the recommended dosage of brown acid, but the defining moment for these cats was not Woodstock, it was Altamont. Mad River's self-titled excursion into psycho-delia and CA Quintet's aptly titled Trip Thru Hell are both highly recommended.

Quote of the Day

"The thing that’s important for me is to remember what’s the most important thing."

--George W. Bush, Feb 20, 2001, speaking to schoolchildren at the Moline Elementary School, St. Louis, MO.

Ode to Skullbloggery and Diary Regrets

If I remember correctly (an iffy supposition in many cases), I started a blog once. Flashback to the waning days of Y2K. Ah, the good ol days…of hanging chads and Jews for Buchanan, when the mischievous electoral college became a black hole of legalistic maneuvering. Still licking my wounds over the High Court’s appointment of a glorified chimp to the highest office in the land, I was yet to realize just how much I would miss Bill Clinton over the next four years. As the sequel to Bedtime for Bonzo began to roll, I was yet to realize so many things. Hail to the chimp. Simpler times.

I think I posted to my new blog twice but quickly lost interest. Fast-forward four years. Bonzo wins big. The vote was not close, but the wounds are deeper, much deeper, this time. This world is a frightening and dangerous place. But oh boy-o, has that blogosphere matured!

One of my dearest and most brilliant friends stepped up to the plate back in September with The Blank Generation. I was inclined to follow suit at the time, but held back for numerous reasons. Well today marks the end of my silence. Long live the narcissism of seeing one’s words in print!

I think it was last week’s edition of the ubiquitous Parade magazine in which I read that Barbara Walters’ greatest regret in life was not having kept a diary. This really hit home with me. I have reams of notebooks of thoughts and (mostly) bad poetry from the formative years of 16-22, but when I reached my mid-twenties, I lost that bug. And with my (awful) memory, I can barely tell you what I did yesterday. I have to think real hard about it. For years laziness has trumped the need to put it down on paper. Today I wash it away from within the safe confines of HyperText Markup Language.

I would like to welcome you all to Unfinished Novellas. Here I will share my great loves, passions, and interests in life. Music, politics, current events, literature, philosophical musing: all of this and more.

So bookmark me baby, and visit often.